艾哈迈德·伊本·罕百勒卒于穆斯林历241年,按基督教纪年为公元855年,他可能是历史上最著名的穆斯林之一。由于他的影响,许多人相信,唯一正确的宗教就是先知穆罕默德ﷺ时代所实行的宗教。为了让穆斯林共同体在今世保持团结,并在后世获得拯救,穆斯林必须像先知ﷺ和他的圣门弟子那样生活:吃他们所吃的东西,穿他们所穿的衣服,买卖也只能按照他们的方式进行。

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who died in the 241st year of the Muslim calendar, 855 according to the Christian one, is probably one of the most famous Muslims in history. Thanks to him, many came to believe that the only right religion was the one practiced at the time of the Prophet Muḥammad. To keep their community together in this world and gain salvation in the next, Muslims needed to live as the Prophet and his Companions had lived: to eat what they ate, wear what they wore, buy and sell only as they had done.

“你有做错什么吗？”伊本·罕百勒的一位妻子在两人结婚几天后问他。“没有，”他回答，“只是你穿的那双凉鞋，在先知ﷺ的时代还不存在。”（62.7）

“Is there anything I’m doing wrong?” one of Ibn Ḥanbal’s wives asked him a few days after they were married. “No,” he answered, “except that those sandals you’re wearing didn’t exist at the time of the Prophet” (62.7).

要像最初的穆斯林那样生活，就必须尽可能多地了解他们。关于他们言行的记载，由一位信徒转述给另一位信徒，同时附上传述者的姓名。到伊本·罕百勒的时代，一条可靠的记载，即所谓的圣训（Hadith），应当包含一串人名，从说话者的来源开始，直到亲眼见到先知ﷺ或某位圣门弟子做出或说出所要了解之事的那个人为止。

To live as the first Muslims had lived, it was necessary to know as much as possible about them. Reports of their words and deeds were repeated by one believer to another, along with the names of those who had passed these reports on. By Ibn Ḥanbal’s time, a proper report—called a Hadith—was expected to include a list of names beginning with the speaker’s source and ending with the person who had seen the Prophet or a Companion doing or saying whatever it was that one wished to know.

在阿拔斯时期的宗教审讯中，伊本·罕百勒被捕后，一位好心人引用下面这段圣训来劝慰他：

After Ibn Ḥanbal was arrested during the Abbasid Inquisition, a well-wisher counseled him by citing the following Hadith:

我们听闻，阿布·哈里夫的圣训中，艾尔-莱斯·伊本·萨德转述穆罕默德·伊本·阿疆兰，穆罕默德·伊本·阿疆兰转述阿布·左尼德，阿布·左尼德转述阿拉伊吉，阿拉伊吉转述艾布·胡莱拉：先知ﷺ说：“若有人叫你违抗真主，你就不要听从他。”（68.4）

We heard al-Layth ibn Saʿd report, citing Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, citing Abū l-Zinād, citing al-Aʿraj, citing Abū Hurayrah, that the Prophet, God bless and keep him, said: “If any ask you to disobey God, heed him not” (68.4).

如果求道者找不到关于某个具体问题的圣训记载,那么他或许可以运用自己的理性来解决这一问题。然而,未经约束的个人推理的空间很小,而且越来越小。在伊本·汉百勒的时代,大多数穆斯林已不再相信自己可以随心所欲地作出判断。对许多人来说,必须综合考虑所有相关的古兰经经文和圣训记载,然后运用日益复杂的法律推理体系,得出一条最接近真主旨意的规则。然而,伊本·汉百勒本人无法接受这种做法。在他看来,解决之道是搜集更多的圣训记载,希望其中某一条能够提供所需的信息。但在实践中,这一解决办法对学习者提出了很高的要求。其一,了解某条特定圣训的人可能散居在穆斯林所定居的各地,因此必须四处寻访。伊本·汉百勒在一次前往库法镇搜集圣训的旅程返回后,遇到一位朋友,朋友责备他做得太过分了:

What if a seeker could find no Hadith report about a particular question? In that case he might apply his own reasoning to the problem. Yet the scope for undisciplined individual effort was small and growing smaller. In Ibn Ḥanbal’s time, most Muslims no longer believed that they could simply judge as they thought best. For many, it was necessary to take into consideration all related Qurʾanic verses and Hadith reports, and then—using an increasingly complex system of legal reasoning—come up with a rule that seemed best to approximate God’s will. Yet Ibn Ḥanbal himself could not accept this approach. The solution, in his view, was to learn more Hadith reports, in the hope that one or another report would supply the information needed. In practice, however, this solution placed great demands on the learner. For one thing, the people who happened to know a particular report might be living anywhere in the lands settled by Muslims, and it was necessary to seek them out. On his return from a Hadith-gathering mission to the town of Kufa, Ibn Ḥanbal was accosted by a friend who reproached him for overdoing it:

“今天是库法，明天又要去巴士拉！你们还能这样坚持多久？”

“Today it’s Kufa; tomorrow it’ll be Basra again! How much longer can you keep this up?

“你已经抄录了三万条圣训！还不够吗？”艾哈迈德没有说话。

You’ve already copied thirty thousand reports! Isn’t that enough?” [Aḥmad] said nothing.

“如果你达到六万呢？”他仍然沉默不语。

“What if you reach sixty thousand?” He was still silent.

“十万？”他回答道：“到那时，人才可能声称自己知道了什么。”（4.20）

“A hundred thousand?” “At that point,” he replied, “a man might claim to know something” (4.20).

学习过程中另一个难题是如何记住自己所学的内容。前现代社会常被描述为口述文化，前现代人也常被认为拥有惊人的大量记忆能力，但并非人人都觉得死记硬背容易。伊本·罕百勒的年长同时代人沙斐仪据说曾服用乳香以增强记忆力，结果导致内出血。¹ 伊本·罕百勒本人坚持要人把所学的圣训记录下来（13.9）。据载，他会把按主题整理好的笔记带进清真寺讲学（26.2），也会翻找成堆的纸张，以找到他所需要的传述（26.1）。

Another problem was keeping track of what one was learning. Premodern societies are often described as oral cultures, and premodern people as having extraordinary abilities to memorize vast amounts of material, but not everyone found rote learning easy. Ibn Ḥanbal’s older contemporary al-Shāfiʿī reportedly ingested frankincense to strengthen his memory, to the point that he suffered internal bleeding.1 Ibn Ḥanbal himself insisted that one write down the Hadiths one learned (13.9). He is described as carrying his notes—organized by topic—into the mosque to teach (26.2) and rummaging through piles of papers to find the report he wanted (26.1).

即使一个人记诵了许多圣训，他的功课也才刚刚开始。仅仅知道许多圣训是不够的，还必须依照其中的教导而生活。对伊本·罕百勒而言，这意味着要克制自己，不享用先知所鄙弃或从未见过的奢侈之物，例如镶银的椅子（53.3）。此外，还必须避免那些本身或许可以接受、但因与某种被禁之物或仅仅是可疑之物相关联而被玷污的物品和行为。比如，伊本·罕百勒无从知晓政府征收的赋税是否公平合理、是否得到妥善使用。因此，无论是作为囚徒还是作为客人前往王宫期间，他都拒绝吃别人给他的任何食物（69.13、69.25、73.19–21）。他还拒绝吃用其子萨利哈的烤炉烤制的面包或南瓜，因为萨利哈曾接受过哈里发的馈赠（49.13、49.20）。这种对仪式性玷污的深切忌惧被称为“维拉尔”（waraʿ），这个词似乎没有确切的英文对应词，常被译为“审慎”（scrupulousness）或“过分拘谨”（scrupulosity）。实际上，维拉尔意味着放弃奢华，而当时富庶且以纵情享乐著称的巴格达，恰恰提供了许多奢华之物。与他的一些同伴不同，伊本·罕百勒并不主张干涉他人的享乐。

Even if one learned many Hadith reports, one’s task had only begun. Simply knowing many reports was not enough: it was also necessary to live in accordance with the teachings they contained. For Ibn Ḥanbal, this meant denying oneself the luxuries the Prophet scorned, or had never seen, like chairs decorated with silver (53.3). It was, furthermore, necessary to avoid objects and activities that might have been acceptable in themselves but which were tainted by association with something forbidden or merely suspicious. For example, Ibn Ḥanbal had no way of knowing whether the taxes collected by the government were fairly levied and properly spent. He therefore refused to eat anything offered to him during his visits to the palace, whether as a prisoner or a guest (69.13, 69.25, 73.19–21). He also refused to eat bread or gourds baked in an oven that belonged to his son Ṣāliḥ, who had accepted a gift from the caliph (49.13, 49.20). This horror of ritual pollution was called waraʿ, which seems to have no precise English translation; it is often called “scrupulousness” or “scrupulosity.” In practice, waraʿ meant renouncing luxury, and Baghdad—a famously wealthy and self-indulgent place at the time—had many luxuries to offer. Unlike some of his associates, Ibn Ḥanbal did not believe in interfering with the pleasures of others.

然而他自己却拒绝参与其中。相反，他日复一日地待在一间简陋的房间里，有时还会思量：把几枚硬币包在一块破布里，是否是错误的，因为这暗示着他对神会为他供给的信心不足（35.7、41.17、79.6）。

Yet he refused to partake in them himself. Instead, he spent his days in a shabby room, sometimes wondering whether keeping a few coins wrapped in a rag was wrong because it implied doubt that God would provide for him (35.7, 41.17, 79.6).

对于伊本·罕百勒的同时代人来说，这一景象尤其令人动容，因为他的克己节欲是出于自愿的选择。从名字来看，他的许多圣训学者同行都是mawālī的后裔，也就是皈依伊斯兰教的非阿拉伯人。他们的父亲大多是商人或工匠，名字诸如“皮革匠”“布商”“醋匠”等等。相比之下，伊本·罕百勒是阿拉伯人：他属于那个孕育了先知穆罕默德ﷺ和启示语言的民族。此外，他的家族是显赫的世家，曾协助阿拔斯政权上台。他的祖父曾任萨拉赫斯（Sarakhs）的总督，该城如今位于土库曼斯坦与伊朗的边境上（1.7）。可以推想，伊本·罕百勒本可以利用家族关系谋得一个政府职位（3.5–7）。然而，他选择了追求圣训。诚然，他确实接受了一份继承财富的好处：若干处出租房产，其收入足以供养他和家人（40.1）。但据记载，他也会在极小的借口下减免租客的房租（42.1）。物价高昂时，他似乎根本不收房租，而是靠出售其妻乌姆·萨利赫（Umm Ṣāliḥ）织的布料为生（44.6）。

For Ibn Ḥanbal’s contemporaries, this spectacle was an especially moving one because his austerity was a matter of choice. To judge by their names, many of his fellow Hadith scholars were descendants of mawālī, that is, of non-Arabs who had adopted Islam. Their fathers were traders and craftsmen, with names such as “the leather-worker,” “the draper,” “the maker of vinegar,” and so on. Ibn Ḥanbal, by contrast, was an Arab: he belonged to the people who had given the world the Prophet Muḥammad and the language of the Revelation. Moreover, his family was a prominent one that had helped to bring the Abbasid regime to power. His grandfather had served as governor of Sarakhs, a town that now lies on the border between Turkmenistan and Iran (1.7). Presumably, Ibn Ḥanbal could have used his family connections to obtain a government job (3.5–7). Instead, he chose to seek Hadith. Admittedly, he did accept one of the benefits of inherited wealth: a number of rental properties that supplied enough income to support him and his family (40.1). But he is also described as giving his tenants breaks on their rent on the slightest pretext (42.1). When prices were high, he seems not to have collected rent at all, living instead from the sale of cloth woven by his wife Umm Ṣāliḥ (44.6).

回顾过去，我们可以看到，伊本·罕百勒在后来被称为逊尼派的运动中起到了奠基性的作用。对他的追随者而言，做一个穆斯林意味着以先知的逊奈（sunnah，即实践）与《古兰经》一起作为安排自身生活的根据。这意味着以圣训为正确实践的来源，而不是（例如）以某位在世宗教导师的言论为依据。这意味着接受穆罕默德ﷺ之后哈里发的继承次序，而不像什叶派那样主张阿里是先知众伴当中最有资格者。最后，这意味着拒绝宗教事务中的臆测，并拒绝讨论《古兰经》或圣训中未明确说明的问题。

With the benefit of hindsight, we see that Ibn Ḥanbal played a formative role in the movement later called Sunnism. For his followers, being a Muslim meant taking the practice (sunnah) of the Prophet, along with the Qurʾan, as the basis for living one’s life. It meant looking to Hadith—and not, for example, to the words of a living religious guide—as the source of right practice. It meant accepting the succession of caliphs after Muḥammad rather than claiming, as the Shiʿa did, that ʿAlī was the worthiest of the Prophet’s Companions. Finally, it meant rejecting speculation in matters of religion and refusing to discuss matters not spelled out in the Qurʾan or the Hadith.

具有讽刺意味的是,伊本·罕百勒刚刚下葬,他的追随者便觉得有必要运用对手的武器来为自己的立场辩护,其中包括神学辩论。甚至在他在世时,崇尚圣训的穆斯林与阿拔斯王朝之间就已开始出现和解的迹象。该王朝曾试图以什叶派式的自上而下的方式,把自己的指导强加给广大信众。伊本·罕百勒的门人也已开始搜集各种传闻和意见,这些材料后来成为那些希望在法律问题上追随他的人的基本文本(这里的法律既包括信仰和礼仪,也包括西方法律体系所涵盖的领域)。从这一系列活动中,逐渐形成了所谓的罕百里法学派。伊本·罕百勒并非该学派的创立者,但无疑是其灵感来源,至少是其精神象征。

Ironically, however, Ibn Ḥanbal seems hardly to have been laid to rest before his followers felt compelled to defend their position using the weapons of their adversaries, including theological disputation. Even while he was alive, a rapprochement had begun to take place between Hadith-minded Muslims and the Abbasid regime, which had tried to impose its own top-down, Shiʿa-style guidance on the mass of believers. And Ibn Ḥanbal’s associates had already begun collecting the reports and opinions that would become fundamental texts for those who wished to follow his lead in matters of law (which included belief and ritual as well as the areas covered by Western legal systems). From all this activity emerged the so-called Ḥanbalī legal school, of which Ibn Ḥanbal was not the founder, but certainly the inspiration, or at least the figurehead.

通过反对什叶派、理性主义和神学思辨，伊本·罕百勒帮助阐明了那些立场，而这些立场如今至少在名义上为当今世界上大多数穆斯林所持守。

By taking a stand against Shiʿism, rationalism, and theological speculation, Ibn Ḥanbal helped articulate the positions now held, at least nominally, by the majority of the Muslims now living on the planet.

对于不认同伊本·罕百勒世界观的人来说,他的主张可能显得压抑,甚至可以说是令人窒息的压迫。再者,他的追随者对他的崇敬之情,也可能显得过分黏腻。事实上,当今许多穆斯林——包括此书前两个阿拉伯文版本的编辑——都竭力谴责加在伊本·罕百勒身上的那种圣化崇拜。据本书所载,伊本·罕百勒能够止住鼻血(61.2),也能通过念诵一段祈祷文将蚂蚁赶出家门(61.1)。

For someone who does not share Ibn Ḥanbal’s view of the world, his positions may seem stifling, if not frankly repressive. Moreover, the adoration his followers felt for him can seem cloying. Indeed, many of today’s Muslims—including the editor of two prior Arabic editions of this biography—take pains to condemn the cult of sanctity to which Ibn Ḥanbal was subjected. According to the reports in this book, Ibn Ḥanbal could cure nosebleeds (61.2) and drive ants from his house by uttering a prayer (61.1).

在与拜占庭人的战线上，士兵们会为他的平安祈祷，祈求真主引导他们的箭射中目标（19.1）。他去世后，一道光从他的坟墓中散发出来，照耀到附近的所有坟墓（95.1）；许多死者在梦中出现，说他们在乐园（即天堂）中见到了他（93.14、93.16以下）。这些说法在伊本·罕百勒自己的时代究竟有多少人真正相信，已不清楚，但他显然成为了远超其所愿的关注对象。据说他曾说过：“我渴望一样我永远不会拥有的东西，那就是一个空无一人的地方。”（54.4）

On the battlefront against the Byzantines, soldiers would pray for his well-being so that God would guide their shots to their targets (19.1). After his death, a light spread from his grave to all the tombs nearby (95.1), and droves of dead men appeared in dreams to say that they had seen him in the Garden (that is, in Paradise) (93.14, 93.16ff.). It is not clear how much of this was actually believed in Ibn Ḥanbal’s own time, but he certainly seems to have been the object of more attention than he wanted. “I wish for something I’ll never have,” he is supposed to have said, “a place with no one in it at all” (54.4).

对许多现代读者而言，正是这一面使伊本·罕百勒的传记得以成立，至少作为传记的主人公是如此。如果说他是圣人（这一用语严格说来用在他身上并不恰当，因为它是一个基督教术语），那他是一位对自己的圣洁感到烦恼的圣人。与圣徒传记中那些超凡脱俗的人物不同，伊本·罕百勒不仅是一位敬畏上主的人，也是一位丈夫、一位父亲和一位房东，或许是世界文学中唯一一位圣洁的房东。他没有与魔鬼搏斗，而是为日常生活中的种种问题而苦恼：哪里去找拔火罐的钱（49.18），女儿可不可以在头发上夹发夹（65.9），杂货商用甜菜叶包着黄油送来，他能否留用（49.24）。无论他最终做出多么严苛的抉择，他始终确信自己的努力永远不够好。有一次，有人问他近况如何，他便滔滔不绝地说道：“一个人怎能安然自处呢？”他回答道，“主为他规定了义务，先知要求他遵循圣行，他的两位天使在等待他的善功，他的灵魂渴求着它想要的东西，恶魔挑动他去贪欲，死亡天使在寻取他的性命，而他的家人还在向他要钱。”（56.6）最终，正是这种人性的脆弱，使这部传记中最具戏剧性的几段情节更加动人：他在阿拔斯宗教裁判所手中遭受的监禁、审讯与鞭笞。

For many modern readers, it is this element that vindicates Ibn Ḥanbal, at least as a subject of biography. If he is a saint (to use what is, strictly speaking, an inapposite Christian term), he is one who finds his own sainthood exasperating. Unlike the ethereal creatures of hagiography, Ibn Ḥanbal is not only a man of God but also a husband, a father, and a landlord—possibly the only saintly landlord in world literature. Instead of wrestling with demons, he struggles with the problems of daily life: where to find the money for a cupping (49.18), whether his daughter should be allowed to put clips in her hair (65.9), whether the law permits him to keep butter when the grocer sends it wrapped in leaves of chard (49.24). And, no matter how harsh the choices he eventually makes, he remains convinced that his efforts are never good enough. On one occasion, asked how he was, he launched into a tirade: “How can a man be,” he answered, “with his Lord imposing obligations, his Prophet demanding that he follow the sunnah, his two angels waiting for good deeds, his soul clamoring for what it wants, the Devil goading him to lust, the Angel of Death seeking his life, and his family asking for money?” (56.6). It is this human frailty, finally, that heightens the effect of the most dramatic episodes in this biography—his imprisonment, trial, and flogging at the hands of the Abbasid Inquisition.

伊本·罕百勒不赞成在宗教问题上进行臆测。在他看来，如果最早的穆斯林没有讨论过某个信仰或实践问题，那么去讨论它就是错误的。阿拔斯王朝的哈里发麦蒙（卒于218年/833年）则不同，他不仅接受臆测，还认为自己是最有资格从事这种思辨的人，并且认为他的臣民有义务接受他所作出的任何决定。为了验证这一点，哈里发决定就一个只能依靠理性来裁定的问题表明立场，这个问题就是《古兰经》是否受造。麦蒙的立场是，真主创造了万物，包括《古兰经》。而许多圣训学者主张真主的话语是祂的一部分，因此也是永恒的，哈里发则坚持认为，这样主张实际上等同于成为基督徒。然而，伊本·罕百勒并不是仅凭辩论就能被说服的人。当被要求确认《古兰经》是受造的时候，他拒绝这样做，除非审问者能够提供《古兰经》本文中的一节经文，或先知ﷺ说明此事确实如此的一段圣训（69.7ff.）。

Ibn Ḥanbal did not believe in speculating about matters of religion. For him, if the first Muslims had not addressed a particular question of faith or practice, it was wrong to discuss it. The Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn (d. 218/833), on the other hand, not only embraced speculation, he believed himself the best-qualified person to engage in it, and furthermore that his subjects were obliged to accept whatever he might decide. To test the point, the caliph decided to take a position on a problem that could only be decided by the use of reason. That problem was the createdness of the Qurʾan. Al-Maʾmūn’s position was that God had created everything, including the Qurʾan. To claim instead, as many Hadith-men did, that the Word of God was part of Him and therefore eternal too was in effect to be a Christian, or so the caliph insisted. But Ibn Ḥanbal was not one to be persuaded by mere argument. Asked to affirm that the Qurʾan is created, he refused to do so unless his interrogators could give him a verse from the Book itself or a statement by the Prophet saying this was so (69.7ff.).

正如伊本·罕百勒无疑知道的,只依靠《古兰经》和圣训,便等于否认哈里发享有任何特殊的诠释权威。果然,麦蒙威胁说,如果伊本·罕百勒不收回自己的主张,就要杀了他。此后发生的事情,最好按照传记中的叙述来理解;就本导论的目的而言,重要的是这份记载把他描绘成一个令人心酸、有血有肉、心怀恐惧的人。据说他对朋友们说:“他们把我关进监狱,我不在乎。我的家已经是监狱了。他们用剑杀我,我也不在乎。我唯一害怕的,是挨鞭打:我怕自己承受不住。”(68.1)即使是对他的信仰毫无同情的读者,我希望也能够欣赏伊本·罕百勒——或者至少是他在文学中的对应形象——以原则性的非暴力方式抵抗强制性的国家权威。

As Ibn Ḥanbal doubtless knew, to rely on Qurʾan and Hadith alone was to deny the caliph any special interpretive authority. Predictably, al-Maʾmūn threatened to kill Ibn Ḥanbal if he did not recant. What happened next is best read as it is told in the biography; what matters for the purpose of introduction is that the account depicts him as poignantly human and afraid. “I don’t care if they keep me in prison,” he is supposed to have told his friends. “My house is already a prison. And I don’t care if they kill me by the sword. The only thing I’m afraid of is being flogged: I’m afraid I won’t be able to take it” (68.1). Even readers who have little sympathy for his beliefs will, I hope, be able to admire Ibn Ḥanbal—or at least, his literary counterpart—for practicing principled nonviolent resistance to coercive state authority.

在他那部内容极为丰富的伊本·罕百勒传记导言中，克里斯托弗·梅尔彻特解释了自己为何撰写新的传记，而不是翻译一部旧作。他写道，中世纪的传记“不可避免地呈现出中世纪的观点”。

In the introduction to his wonderfully informative life of Ibn Ḥanbal, Christopher Melchert explains why he wrote a new biography instead of translating an old one. A medieval biography, he writes, “inevitably presents a medieval point of view”:

一位全职学者有机会培养出对此类文献的兴趣，但大多数读者会觉得它令人难以接受。例如，伊本·焦兹（Ibn al-Jawzi）的传记中有一章，只是一份列表，罗列了艾哈迈德（Ahmad）收集圣训时所依据的四百多位人物。若要进行恰当的分析，很容易超出一部普通传记的篇幅限制。……我怀疑除专家之外，这对其他人几乎不会有兴趣。

A full time scholar has had the chance to develop a taste for such literature, but most readers would find it grotesque. For example, one chapter of Ibn al-Jawzi’s biography is simply a list of the more than four hundred persons from whom Ahmad collected Hadith. A proper analysis would easily exceed the limits of a normal biography.…I doubt it would interest any but specialists.

此外，梅尔切特指出，翻译一部前现代作品会过于冗长。例如，阿尔-达哈比（al-Dhahabī）所著的伊本·罕百勒传记“至少需要六万字左右”，而伊本·al-Jawzi的同类作品则“超过十五万字”。2

Moreover, says Melchert, the translation of a premodern work would be too long. For example, al-Dhahabī’s life of Ibn Ḥanbal “would require a good 60,000 [words] and Ibn al-Jawzi’s over 150,000.”2

这一部后出的著作，即本书所编辑与翻译的内容：伊玛目艾哈迈德·本·罕百勒的美德（Manāqib al-Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal），作者是巴格达的圣训学者、教法学家、历史学家、传记学家和宣教者伊本·al-Jawzī（卒于597年/1201年）。³ 梅尔切特对篇幅的估计极为准确：伊本·al-Jawzī此文的本译本约为173,500字。

The latter work is the one edited and translated here: the Virtues of the Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal by the Baghdadi Hadith scholar, jurist, historian, biographer, and preacher Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201).3 Melchert’s estimate of length is remarkably accurate: the present translation of Ibn al-Jawzī’s text comes to about 173,500 words.

他说得完全对，关于那些冗长的人名列表。而且他甚至没有提到传述链（isnād）。与圣训文集一样，阿拉伯编年史和传记通常也会列出所有传述该事件原始记载的人，以此注明出处。作为一位圣训学者，在为另一位圣训学者写传记时，伊本·al-Jawzī似乎格外谨慎，力求列出所有的出处。结果是，这本书大约有一半的篇幅都被isnād占据，所谓isnād，即这些出处列表的名称。

He is also quite right about the long lists of names. And he does not even mention the chains of transmitters. Like collections of Hadith reports, Arabic chronicles and biographies generally cite their sources by listing all the individuals who transmitted the original account of the event in question. As a Hadith scholar writing about another Hadith scholar, Ibn al-Jawzī seems to have been especially careful to cite all his sources. The result is a book approximately half of which is taken up with isnāds, as the lists of sources are called.

在这本书的双语版中,包括所有的原始材料在内,其中的传承链(isnāds)全部予以保留。与之相比,本平装版删去了第2章、第11–14章、第20章、第90章和第100章的几乎全部内容,只保留一个有代表性的部分,通常是第一节,以便让读者了解被删去的内容概貌。为与精装本保持一致,本平装版的边码仍保持不变,尽管这在某些地方造成了编号不连续的情况。这一新版还删去了所有传承链,只保留第一条(1.1)。与双语版一样,每段记载开头括号中的人名是传述人的名字。当括号中出现“Aḥmad”时,指的是“Ibn Ḥanbal”(伊本·罕百勒),其后的记载实际上是自传性的。其他常被引用的传述人包括伊本·罕百勒的儿子Ṣāliḥ和ʿAbd Allāh,以及他的弟子al-Marrūdhī。关于这些人物的更多信息可参见术语表。

In the bilingual edition of this book, all of the original material, including the isnāds, was retained. This paperback edition, by contrast, drops almost all of Chapters 2, 11–14, 20, 90, and 100, keeping only a representative section, usually the first, intended to give the reader an idea of what has been left out. To maintain consistency with the hardcovers, however, the section numbers in the margins have been left unchanged in this paperback edition, even though that has led to some non-consecutive numbering in some places. This new edition also omits all the isnāds except for the first (1.1). As in the bilingual edition, the name given in brackets at the beginning of each report is the name of the narrator. When it appears in brackets, “Aḥmad” means “Ibn Ḥanbal” and the following report is in effect autobiographical. Other commonly cited narrators are Ibn Ḥanbal’s sons Ṣāliḥ and ʿAbd Allāh, and his disciple al- Marrūdhī. More information on these figures may be found in the Glossary.

在对双语版的精彩书评中，Tasi Perkins 问我为何对本书的作者谈得不多。4 原因有几点。首先，伊本·朱兹（Ibn al-Jawzī）生平的外在事实在多种印刷及网络资料中都容易找到。更重要的是，伊本·朱兹与其说是现代意义上的作者，不如说是一位编纂者。正如文学评论家阿卜杜勒法塔赫·基利托（Abdelfattah Kilito）所论，前现代阿拉伯文学有各自分明的体裁（颂诗、情诗、传记等），却几乎没有各自分明的作者。5 伊本·朱兹自己也说过，本书代表的是整个罕百里传统，而非他个人的见解（例如见 100.1）。当然，就我们所见的这部书而言，它反映了其时其地的关注点。恰好，我2001年的著作《古典阿拉伯传记》中有一章论及这一话题，因此在这里我大多不愿重复。即便如此，仍有一些有助于理解文本的要点收录在本版的注释中（例如注释 335、337、342、371、379、385、386 和 422）。

In his insightful review of the bilingual edition, Tasi Perkins asked why I did not have more to say about the author of this book.4 There are several reasons why. First, the external facts of Ibn al-Jawzī’s life are readily found in several sources both in print and on line. More importantly, Ibn al-Jawzī was less an author in the modern sense than a compiler. As the literary critic Abdelfattah Kilito has argued, pre-modern Arabic literature has distinct genres (praise poetry, love poetry, biography, etc.) but few distinct authors.5 As Ibn al-Jawzī himself tells us, this book speaks for the whole Ḥanbalī tradition, not for him as an individual (see, e.g., 100.1). Of course, the book as we have it reflects the preoccupations of his time and place. As it happens, one chapter of my 2001 book Classical Arabic Biography deals with this topic, and for the most part I have preferred not to repeat myself here. Even so, points that help make sense of the text are included in the notes to this edition (see, for example, notes 335, 337, 342, 371, 379, 385, 386, and 422).

撇开篇幅不谈，这本书的翻译难度并不算大。

Leaving aside the matter of length, this book was not particularly difficult to translate.

与本系列中已出版的其他一些著作不同，这本书既不是关于某个一度引发激烈争论的问题的论辩集，也不是专为某一技术领域的专家撰写的指南，更不是语言机巧的纪念碑。它是由一群相信简单真理、并以简单语言表达这些真理的人所写，也是关于他们的书——尽管随着时间流逝，其中一些简朴之处已为我们所不解。从某种意义上说，那些最困难的部分，也恰恰是翻译过程中最令人愉快的部分。其中包括对日常生活与物质文化的种种提及。

Unlike some of the other works published in this series, it is not a collection of arguments about a once-burning issue, a guide for specialists in a technical field, or a monument to verbal cleverness. It is a book by and about people who believed in simple truths expressed in simple language—even if some of that simplicity has been lost to us with the passage of time. In a sense, the difficult parts were also the most enjoyable to work on. These include the references to daily life and material culture:

从“一道加入大量肉和甜菜（chard）的干乳清炖菜”（38.11），到一位突厥将军踩着泥泞走向伊本·罕百勒家门时所穿的橡胶套鞋（73.41），整部书都是有关第三世纪/第九世纪物质与社会世界的宝库。我希望至少有一些读者能够深入挖掘其中的丰富内容。

everything from “a dried-whey stew full of meat and chard” (38.11) to the galoshes a Turkish general wears as he splashes his way through the mud to Ibn Ḥanbal’s door (73.41). The book is a trove of information on the physical and social world of the third/ninth century, and I hope some readers, at least, will mine its riches.

我最希望传统为我们保存下来的，是那些声音。伊本·罕百勒的生平是以一系列传闻的形式流传下来的，每则传闻都由一位亲历者讲述，或者由伊本·罕百勒本人讲述。

What I most wish the tradition had preserved for us is the voices. Ibn Ḥanbal’s life is told as a series of reports, each narrated by an eyewitness, or by Ibn Ḥanbal himself.

如果书页上的文字确实是对口语的记录,那么每段传述都应当体现一个独特的声音。然而实际上,这些传述的语域并没有太大变化,这或许是因为,最初以通俗阿拉伯语(甚至可能是其他语言)叙述的传述,被某位传述者改写成了或多或少统一的书面阿拉伯语(参见 38.10)。除了目击者的声音之外,我们还能听到他们所引述之人的声音。这些人的身份从哈里发、法官、狱卒,到医生、杂货商和强盗,无所不包。

If the words on the page really are transcriptions of speech, each report should represent a distinct voice. In practice, though, there does not seem to be much variation in register, possibly because reports originally narrated in informal Arabic, and perhaps even other languages, have been put into literary Arabic of a more or less uniform kind by one or another of the transmitters (see, e.g., 38.10). Beyond the voices of the eyewitnesses, we also have the voices of all the people they quote. These include everyone from caliphs, judges, and jailors to doctors, grocers, and bandits.

不寻常的是，我们也能听到女性（例如61.7）和儿童（65.9）的声音，尽管只是简短一瞥。然而，这里同样的问题是，所有这些人似乎说的都是同一种阿拉伯语，因此很难在英语中赋予他们各自独特的声音。

Unusually, if all too briefly, we also hear the voices of women (e.g., 61.7) and children (65.9). Here again, though, all of these people seem to be speaking the same sort of Arabic, making it difficult to give them distinctive voices in English.

另一个问题是人名。和十九世纪的俄国小说一样，书中所有重要人物似乎都有好几个名字，而作者似乎随意使用它们。事实上（和俄国小说中一样），某个名字被使用而非另一个名字，是有其理由的。以伊本·罕百勒为例，撰写他的人通常称他为艾哈迈德·伊本·罕百勒（“罕百勒之子艾哈迈德”），或简称艾哈迈德。

Another problem was names. As in nineteenth-century Russian novels, all of the important characters seem to have several names, and authors seem to use them indiscriminately. In fact (as in Russian novels) there are reasons why one name might be used rather than another. In Ibn Ḥanbal’s case, those who write about him usually call him Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (“Aḥmad the descendant of Ḥanbal”), or Aḥmad for short.

但他的朋友、同伴和学生都称他为“阿布·阿卜杜拉”，意为“阿卜杜拉之父”。这一称呼既体现亲近，也表达尊敬。不过，它很容易与伊本·罕百勒之子阿卜杜拉的名字相混淆。此外，“阿布·阿卜杜拉”在书中还至少是另外两位人物的称呼。经过反复思量，我决定在导言和注释中，凡需尽可能明确地指代他时，称他为伊本·罕百勒；而在译文中，凡需要传达亲切或敬佩之情时，则称他为艾哈迈德。

But his friends, associates, and students called him ʿAbū ʿAbd Allāh, “father of ʿAbd Allāh.” This form conveys both intimacy and respect. Unfortunately, it is easily confused with ʿAbd Allāh, the name of Ibn Ḥanbal’s son. Also, Abū ʿAbd Allāh happens to be the form of address for at least two other figures in the book. After much reflection, I decided to call him Ibn Ḥanbal in the introduction and notes, where it was necessary to refer to him as unambiguously as possible, but in the translation to call him Aḥmad wherever it was necessary to convey warmth or admiration.